While Mailchimp’s forever free plan is ideal for most new bloggers and small business owners, it has a few limitations: you can send only up to 12,000 emails per month to up to 2000 subscribers.

Once you cross that limit, you need to upgrade to one of their paid plans. In addition to this, the free plan doesn’t include advanced segmentation options, multivariate testing, and inbox preview. Furthermore, there is no email and chat support for the forever free plan.

For people who are looking to migrate from Mailchimp to better options, let’s deep dive into 6 of the best alternatives to Mailchimp.

6 Best Mailchimp Alternatives

SendinBlue started as a digital marketing agency and then evolved into an email marketing platform in 2012. The company’s email solutions are tailored mostly towards small businesses. From its beginner-friendly interface to pricing plans to features, everything in SendinBlue is designed keeping small businesses in mind.

The SendinBlue free plan allows you to send 300 emails per day. You can add unlimited contacts in your email list under the free plan and it also includes email automation features.

Key features – Some of SendinBlue’s key features include a mobile-friendly email designer, an extensive email template library, workflow editor, customizable sign up forms, and real-time reporting.

Pricing – Unlike other email marketing services in this list, SendinBlue doesn’t offer list-based plans. Instead, you get to choose a plan based on the number of emails you’d like to send per month.

ConvertKit is a preferred email marketing service of several professional bloggers, including Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income.

ConvertKit offers the same functionality and ease of use as other ESPs in this list, with one key difference: it’s tailored for bloggers. One of the most talked about features of ConvertKit is the automation rules that you can create with the tool. It’s based on a very simple “if this/then that” sequence.

Key features – Some of the key features of ConvertKit include responsive opt-in forms, landing page creation, email automation, email broadcasts, and campaign reporting. It’s also integrated with popular services such as Shopify, WooCommerce, Zapier, SumoMe, etc.

Pricing – The ConvertKit pricing is list-based. The biggest flip side is that there is no free trial available. However, when you sign up, there is an option for you to get the first month free. The basic email plan with 1000 subscribers starts from $29/month.

MailerLite is an email marketing platform used by 560,000+ small businesses, entrepreneurs, bloggers, artists, authors, hobbyists, activists, dreamers, and anyone else who wants to build relationships with their audience.

Their goal is to remove the complexity from email marketing with easy-to-use, yet powerful features and exceptional 24/7 customer support with real people always ready to help.

MailerLite offers the same advanced tools and integrations of other Mailchimp alternatives, yet they manage to keep it simple, inexpensive and fun to use for people of all skill levels.

Key Features – MailerLite’s drag & drop editor offers pre-designed blocks for social media, embedded surveys, and video to name a few. Landing pages, pop-ups, automation, and segmentation are all included in the plans.

Pricing – MailerLite keeps pricing simple as well. While the free plan includes most of the features, all of their paid plans include unlimited emails with every feature.

SendPulse is one of the new entrants in the market which seamlessly combines simplicity with complexity to offer an email marketing product that can rival Mailchimp and the other services featured in this article. It seeks to bring unique features and an easy learning curve to the email service provider (ESP) market, making it an ideal option for beginners.

It’s also the only ESP among the four in this list that offers a free plan like Mailchimp. Under the free plan, you can send up to 15,000 emails per month to up to 2500 subscribers while having access to premium features such as web push and autoresponders.

Key Features – SendPulse is an integrated solution that offers bulk email, bulk SMS messages and web push notifications, allowing you to combine all 3 in your communication campaign. No other ESP in this list offers that. You’ll also be able to send emails to people within your email list who haven’t yet opened your emails the first time through a feature called “Resend to unread”. In addition to these, you’ll also be able to use features such as autoresponders, responsive subscription forms, A/B testing, and email analytics. SendPulse is integrated with 500+ services which include Zapier, WordPress, WooCommerce, Typeform, etc.

If you’re in the eCommerce space and are looking to improve your omni-channel communication, Omnisend should be your first option.

SMS automation, Facebook custom audiences, and Google remarketing lists are some of the most important features for advanced eCommerce marketing automation. If your business is growing and you’re seeking a great Mailchimp alternative for more advanced eCommerce marketing automation, you should seriously consider Omnisend.

Key features – Omnisend will help to replace the many small, separate apps you’re currently using, allowing you to enjoy all you need in a single tool: different lead forms, landing pages, predefined marketing automation workflows (product abandonment, cart recovery), advanced visitors segmentation, and even SMS marketing.

Pricing – The pricing model is based on subscribers and functions. There is a free plan to send 15,000 emails to up to 2000 subscribers. The Standard plan starts from $10 per month. Under PRO plan ($199/mo), you’ll get your own dedicated account manager.

If reliability and reputation are your primary motive to migrate from Mailchimp, there is no better Mailchimp alternative than AWeber.

Founded in 1998, AWeber is the preferred ESP used by over 120,000+ small businesses, bloggers, and entrepreneurs from all around the world. AWeber is easy to use, has all the essential features, and has the #1 customer service team among all email service providers.

Key features – AWeber has tons of useful features, but some of its key features such as autoresponders (automated emails), blog broadcasts, and A/B Split Testing deserve special mention. AWeber is integrated with popular tools and services such as Google Analytics, LeadPages, WordPress, OptinMonster, WooCommerce, etc.

Pricing – AWeber’s pricing is list-based. It offers a free 30-day trial for lists of up to 500 subscribers. Once the trial is over, you can opt for any of the following list-based pricing options:

Up to 500 subscribers – $19/month

Up to 2,500 subscribers – $29/month

Up to 5,000 subscribers – $49/month

Up to 10,000 subscribers – $69/month

Up to 25,000 subscribers – $149/month

Over 25,000 subscribers – Contact AWeber for pricing

If you exceed your plan’s monthly limit, you will be billed for the next plan up. This is a common practice among majority of email service providers.

The best part about AWeber’s 30-day trial is that they unlock all the essential features of their product. This means you get access to features such as autoresponders, A/B split testing, blog broadcasts, etc. right away.

Final Thoughts

So these are six of the best alternatives to Mailchimp you can opt for in 2019.

If you have a preferred email marketing service which you think is a better alternative to Mailchimp than the ones listed here, please feel free to mention them in the comments section. We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Editor’s Note: This article was first published on Aug 24, 2016 and has been updated regularly since then for relevance and comprehensiveness.

Sandeep Mallya is the Founder/CEO of Startup Cafe, a Bangalore-based digital marketing agency. He is an active member of the startup community, having worked with several early-stage startups and accelerators. 99signals is Sandeep's inbound marketing blog. Here you can find tips and insights to grow your site's traffic.

11 COMMENTS

[…] Mailchimp is the preferred email marketing service provider (ESP) for several small businesses as well as bloggers worldwide. It’s a great email tool with useful features and it’s super easy to use. But it’s not necessarily the best email marketing service for every business and blogger out there. While the Mailchimp forever free plan is ideal … […]

Thanks for the article.
Mailchimp and GetResponse are my all time favorites.
Any of those 3 options sure looks like a solid Mailchimp replacement each with its unique killer features. I can recommend one more alernative – http://www.sendpulse.com marketing automation platform. I use this single service for sending emails, SMS messages and free webpush notifications. It is a significantly more affordable option than those 3 mentioned in the article or Mailchimp. You can use it for free if you have no more than 2500 subscribers. There’s advanced automation functionality both in free and paid plans – things like autoresponders, segmentation, personalization, statistics, testing, API. Support is available for all clients, including the free plan users. This service is a great option for SMB’s, startups, bloggers and anyone on a tight budget but in need of a reliable and capable marketing automation solution.

Thanks for the article.
Mailchimp and GetResponse are my all time favorites.
Any of those 3 options sure looks like a solid Mailchimp replacement each with its unique killer features. I can recommend one more alernative – SendPulse marketing automation platform. I use this single service for sending emails, SMS messages and free webpush notifications. It is a significantly more affordable option than those 3 mentioned in the article or Mailchimp. You can use it for free if you have no more than 2500 subscribers. There’s advanced automation functionality both in free and paid plans – things like autoresponders, segmentation, personalization, statistics, testing, API. Support is available for all clients, including the free plan users. This service is a great option for SMB’s, startups, bloggers and anyone on a tight budget but in need of a reliable and capable marketing automation solution.

Hey Sandeep,
Thank You for sharing the list of Mailchimp alternatives. It’s indeed a great post and an interesting read. I was researching about Mailchimp alternatives which could be used with low cost and added benefits other than Mailchimp and I came across this compelling post where I found that one of the best alternative was Mailerlite. The blog link ishttps://sprout24.com/12x-cheaper-mailchimp-alternative/
If you could provide me more insights on mailchimp alternatives it would be great.
Thanks

Very helpful article. Thanks Sandeep. Your blog is always good to read all the time.
I’m researching about Mailchimp alternatives recently, and Aweber is my favourite one.
However, my user base is huge. So the pricing is too much. I cam across MailBot due to this article and still testing the features. Everything is great till now: https://beeketing.com/blog/mailchimp-alternatives/

Hi Sandeep
Thanks for the help! I’ve been looking for a new email marketing service for a while now. I’ve heard a lot about most popular ones. I think they are decent, but I wanted to see something new and your article helped me to figure out what’s worth taking a look at. I found a not so popular email marketing service called SoundTest. I didn’t have the time to test it out properly, but so far it really caught my interest. It’s very user-friendly and seems to offer a pretty good deal. Here’s the link if you would like to see it for yourself : https://www.soundest.com/mailchimp-alternative.

Look into MailerLite – it’s pretty decent alternative to MailChimp. Free up to 1.000 subscribers, support isn’t limited only to paid clients – free accounts get 24/7 support as well. Also, some features liked advanced segmentation or sending emails based on time zone is only available in the paid plans for MailChimp.

[…] If we’re starting at the very beginning, the first step is to join an email service. Mailchimp, for example, allows you to add 2000 email addresses before you have to part with any cash, as well as enabling you to build different lists for different segments of your business if needed. The templates provided are simple but cover the basics of what you need. A resource of other service providers for small businesses can be found here. […]

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About Me

Hi there, I’m Sandeep Mallya!

I’m an entrepreneur and digital marketing consultant from Bangalore, India. I founded my own digital agency, Startup Cafe Digital, in 2015 where I help SMBs leverage social media, SEO, and content marketing to grow their traffic and generate qualified leads for their business.

I started 99signals in 2016 as a side project to document all the strategies, tools, and tactics that I was using to grow my small agency. The goal was simple: to arm other solopreneurs with all the right information they needed to launch a successful business.

ABOUT ME

Hi there, I’m Sandeep Mallya!

I’m an entrepreneur and digital marketing consultant from Bangalore, India. I founded my own digital agency, Startup Cafe Digital, in 2015 where I help SMBs leverage social media, SEO, and content marketing to grow their traffic and generate qualified leads for their business.

I started 99signals in 2016 as a side project to document all the strategies, tools, and tactics that I was using to grow my small agency. The goal was simple: to arm other solopreneurs with all the right information they needed to launch a successful business.

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ABOUT US

99signals is a marketing blog run by me, Sandeep Mallya, to help bloggers and entrepreneurs run a successful side business and earn extra income through blogging and affiliate marketing.